Agatha Christie always had been a fan of detective novels, having enjoyed Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White and The Moonstone, as well as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's early Sherlock Holmes stories. She wrote her own detective novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, featuring Hercule Poirot, a former Belgian police officer noted for his twirly large "magnificent moustaches" and egg-shaped head. Po... Read More
Agatha Christie’s The Chocolate Box has Hercule Poirot escorting Chief Inspector Japp to Belgium. Virginie introduces Poirot into the household and he begins interviewing the servants about the meal served on the night of M. Déroulard's death. He suspects poison, but all ate from common serving dishes. In the study where the death occurred, Poirot spots an open but full and untouched box of cho... Read More
Agatha Christie was an English crime novelist, short-story writer and playwright. Her reputation rests on 66 detective novels and 14 short-story collections that have sold over two billion copies. Her works contain several regular characters with whom the public became familiar, including Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, Parker Pyne and Harley Quin. The Regatta Mystery... Read More
Agatha Christie was born into a wealthy upper-middle-class family in Torquay, Devon. Before marrying and starting a family in London, she had served in a Devon hospital during the First World War, tending to troops coming back from the trenches. She was initially an unsuccessful writer with six consecutive rejections, but this changed when The Mysterious Affair at Styles, featuring Hercule Poir... Read More
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan was an English writer. She is known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around her fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Christie also wrote the world's longest-running play, a murder mystery, The Mousetrap, and, under the pen name Mary Westmacott, six romances. Where did she ge... Read More
A Christmas Tragedy is a short story in The Thirteen Problems collection, which was also published under the title The Tuesday Club Murders. The atmosphere of the on-coming tragedy was heightened when the hall porter died from pneumonia, followed soon after by one of the hydro's housemaids who died of blood poisoning. Miss Marple dates the tragedy from when Mr Sanders overheard her and two othe... Read More
Agatha Christie wrote her first short story, The House of Beauty while recovering in bed from an undisclosed illness. This was about 6,000 words on the topic of "madness and dreams", a subject of fascination for her. Biographer Janet Morgan commented that despite "infelicities of style", the story was nevertheless "compelling". In “The Mystery of the Blue Jar,” a pair of thieves utilize the cur... Read More
Agatha Christie's first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, introduced Hercule Poirot, her eccentric and egotistic Belgian detective. Christie’s first major recognition came with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, which was followed by some 75 novels that usually made best-seller lists. In 1955, Christie was the first recipient of the Mystery Writers of America's highest honour, the Grand Master... Read More
In almost all of Poe's works, death is a central issue. Whether a tale of murder, a tale of horror, a Gothic horror romance, or an allegory, Poe's stories, by nature of his preferred genres, are full of death. Though many of his stories deal with either the murder of someone, the solving of a murder, or the supernatural resurrection of someone who has died, it is his allegorical look at mortali... Read More
The Man of the Crowd is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe about a nameless narrator following a man through a crowded London. The story was first published simultaneously in the December 1840 issues of Atkinson's Casket and Burton's Gentleman's Magazine. The latter was the final issue of that periodical. The narrator perceives a crowd which is outside a London coffee shop through... Read More
Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism in the United States and of American literature as a whole, and he was one of the country's earliest practitioners of the short story. He is generally considered the in... Read More
The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether is a dark comedy short story by the American author Edgar Allan Poe. The story begins with the narrator and his companion travelling through the countryside on horseback. As they travel, the narrator inquires about the Maison de Sante, which is a lunatic asylum. The asylum is a privately run institution under the control of Monsieur Maillard. The c... Read More
The Oval Portrait is a horror short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, involving the disturbing circumstances surrounding a portrait in a chateau. The narrator, wounded and delirious, has sought shelter in an old mansion with his valet or manservant, Pedro. He holes up in one of the rooms, and contemplates the strange paintings adorning the walls of the room, and reads a small book he ha... Read More
Eleonora is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1842 in Philadelphia in the literary annual The Gift. It is often regarded as somewhat autobiographical. The unnamed narrator recollects two distinct periods or chapters in his life. The first one ends with the premature death of his beloved cousin Eleonora. The second one ends with his marriage to Ermengarde, his heartthrob of... Read More
The Black Cat is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe. The Black Cat is told from the perspective of an insane narrator who, in his own words, does not expect the reader to believe him. He tells the reader up front that he is scheduled to die the following day, but the reader doesn't find out why until the end of the story. After setting up his story from this perspective, the man t... Read More
Edgar Allan Poe was an American short-story writer, poet, critic, and editor who is famous for his cultivation of mystery and the macabre. His tale The Murders in the Rue Morgue initiated the modern detective story, and the atmosphere in his tales of horror is unrivalled in American fiction. His The Raven numbers among the best-known poems in the national literature. Published in 1838, the stor... Read More
Morella is a short story in the Gothic horror genre. It was first published in the April 1835 issue of the Southern Literary Messenger, and a revised version was reprinted in the November 1839 issue of Burton's Gentleman's Magazine. The first publication included a 16-line poem of Poe's called Hymn sung by Morella, later published as a stand-alone poem, A Catholic Hymn. There are a number of po... Read More
Edgar Poe was born in Boston on January 19, 1809. That makes him Capricorn, on the cusp of Aquarius. His parents were David and Elizabeth Poe. David was born in Baltimore on July 18, 1784. Elizabeth Arnold came to the U.S. from England in 1796 and married David Poe after her first husband died in 1805. They had three children, Henry, Edgar, and Rosalie. The Imp of the Perverse is a short story.... Read More
Edgar Allan Poe was one of the most important and influential American writers of the 19th century. He was the first author to try to make a professional living as a writer. Much of Poe's work was inspired by the events that happened around him. Berenice is a short horror story. Egaeus grew up in a mansion with gloomy, solitary temperament and poor health. His favourite place is the library, th... Read More
The Gold-Bug is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe published in 1843. The story, set on Sullivan's Island, South Carolina, is often compared with Poe's "tales of ratiocination" as an early form of detective fiction. Poe submitted The Gold-Bug as an entry to a writing contest sponsored by the Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper. His story won the grand prize and was published in three instalments. The n... Read More